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Daily Prompt~Dear Mom

Write a letter to your mom. Tell her something you’ve always wanted to say, but haven’t been able to.

Dear Mom,

Where do I even start? One blog post could never be enough to say all the things I’d like to tell you, you hateful bitch, so I’ll just keep it brief by sticking to the highlights.

I know I never came close to your vision of the perfect daughter. I know I never came close to even an “acceptable” daughter in your eyes.

Even though you’ve been dead for over 5 years, you will be happy to know, that I still struggle on a daily basis with the seeds of self loathing you planted in me, and am also trying to overcome the other ways you fucked with my head each and every day of my life. It should also give you a chuckle to know that now I see you every time I look in the mirror. The older I get, the more I look like you.

If it wasn’t for my “mean, cold, icy, blue eyes” as you liked to call them, we could almost be twins. It makes my stomach lurch when people tell me that I look like you.

Slowly but surely, I am winning this battle with myself that you started. Here’s a few examples you may find surprising~

~Remember when you gave your lovely clothes to The Goodwill, because you said I was “too fat” to wear any of them? Well, I finally overcame the demon of compulsive eating. I lost all that weight-most of it after your death, and I have kept most of it off too. I swore I would never use booze as my crutch like you did, so I’m happy to report that I don’t need food as a crutch anymore either.

~Those kids of mine? The ones you called brats, monsters and hellions? They are all fine young men now, no thanks to you. I managed to raise all three without ever, EVER making them feel worthless.

~But the best part is this. Remember that wonderful boy I loved so very much in college? The one you said would never amount to anything? The one you said that if I continued to date him you would stop paying for my college tuiton? (And you weren’t bluffing, you really pulled the plug on my college education) The one that you and other forces helped to tear away from me so long ago?

Well guess what? That boy-almost 30 years later is my husband now. I know now why you hated him so much. He loves and accepts me for exactly who and what I am. He doesn’t try to make me be something I’m not. He thinks I’m fabulous just the way I am. You never wanted that for me. How could you possibly let me continue in the frivolous direction I was going?

I needed to be molded into the perfect marriagable candidate. A “catch” for any eligible doctor, lawyer or up and comer so I could effortlessly float my way into the country club lifestyle you imagined for me.

Sorry Mommy Dearest. That just isn’t me. It never was, and it never will be.

But you know what else? My darling new husband told me that if you were still alive, this rekindled love affair would never have happened.

Your poison tentacles were so far reaching that you could still blight anything good and wonderful in my life because having to deal with you would have outweighed the happiness he may have had with me. You must be so proud of that.

I hope that they have the internet in the depths of hell, so that you can read this. If it’s really hell, you’ll have to read it every day for eternity. If that were the case, I’d be the one laughing.

I’m so glad I found him again, and that he still loves me, just as much if not more than he did when we were 18. 47 looks pretty damn good on him, and we couldn’t be happier. Thanks for dropping by! Please check out my other blog, where things are much more fun than they are here! :-D

I’m at a loss for things to say. I’m truly glad that you’re happy now, but I feel horrible that you had such a horrible mother. I’m glad that you seem to be coming to peace with yourself and have nearly defeated your demons.

I won’t tell. I have a really good real life friend who lives in San Diego. Never visited him. Actually, haven’t ever been anywhere fun, except Chicago. Nebraska’s peaceful, but flat and boring for the most part.

Oh, well that’s fine. I can handle that. I’m hoping to post something very “awwwww” here today. Freshly pressable even! oh crap, who am I kidding. I’m actually cooking up two awesome posts in my head right now, one cheeky, one not so cheeky. I’m hoping to get them written today.

Well it seems we have something in common…a hateful bitchy mean mother that has passed away. Spending so much energy and most of life trying to “get over” the damage done by a destructively mean mother. What it taught me was how NOT to be a parent. I was a single parent, raising two kids in NY. When in doubt of something I would ask myself, what would mom do? I would do just the opposite figuring she did it so wrong, if I did the opposite it HAS to be right; at the very least better. At the end of the day I’d like to think she did the best she could with what she knew, but that wouldn’t be right. We can improve though and not repeat that cycle. I’m so very glad you did find someone who loves you for who you are and from where you came.

Hello there, and Amen! I think there are a lot of us out there, and some people in my family still refuse to acknowledge this kind of thing happened, and they are mean and hateful as well. I can’t vouch for my mom doing the best she could with what she had, because I just don’t understand the concept of motivating your child through fear and intimidation. I raised my kids by doing the opposite of what my mom would do too. Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing those tough thoughts with me. I appreciate your honesty so much! Stay strong and brave. Awesome moms rule!

This is a great post. It reminds us that not everyone has a wonderful mother. Mine has seeded me with so much self-doubt that I’m now having trouble at work. Nobody suffers / is as angry as / enjoys something as much as her, so I tend play down all my emotions, I think in among the wonderful things our mothers give us – life, nurture, caring when we are young – they never quite realise the bad things they also leave in us.
For example I’m 30, living on my own and big enough to know what I’m doing, but I still feel I need to check things with her, like going out with friends, because she still gets upset if I plan something that might encroach on something she’s planned. But I live in terror of the day I ever have to tell her I’m getting married, or even worse – am pregnant!
When I do have kids, of course I’m going to try and be a bit more open with my children, try not to let them be scared of telling me things – but they all fuck you up in some way or another… Remember the poem :
They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.

Hi there, thanks for sharing all that here. Moms and Dads can definitely fuck a person up. I was like you, constantly fighting for her approval. And for what? It never came. I sure hope I’ve fucked up my own kids as little as possible. I’m sure you’ll do fine. Being aware of this tendency to mess with our kids gives us an edge to be a lot more tolerant of their mistakes, respectful of their choices and feel grateful that we have them.

Hello Mrs Notso cheeky :). Glad you found the love of your life….
I must say that the problems I had with my mother, taught me how not to be with my children.. mostly I succeeded. Sometimes I found/ind myself saying things that were just HER! But they’re all adults now and I hope I haven’t done too much damage :). Hugs xxx